Barry R. Ashpole: HOSPICES CAN BE AN INVALUABLE RESOURCE for prison healthcare services.^1,2 As has been demonstrated, notably in the U.K., community hospices “bring to the table” experience and expertise in the education, training and support of custodial staff.³ The chief beneficiaries, however, are the recipients of end-of-life care – the prison inmates.

If hospices are about giving a voice to people who ordinarily don’t have one, this work should sit at the front and centre of what we do. […] Prisoners have the same right to healthcare as everybody else.³

Unquestionably, the challenges in providing quality end-of-life care in prisons are formidable. For example, the issue of security has to be weighed against the rights of prison inmates to healthcare comparable to what is available in “the outside world.”

Little is known about the role played by community-based hospices in helping to provide end-of-life care to people in Canadian prisons.

I would welcome the opportunity of talking with hospice staff for a planned article on the Canadian experience. Strict confidentially will be observed and nothing published without prior consent.

By way of further background, interested parties might like to review a couple of articles listed below that would help “set the stage,” so to speak, for a dialogue on an important public health issue.^4,5 If interested, please contact the author at [email protected].